Making The Most Of A Wrong Choice!

We are defined by the choices that we make. Most of the times, these choices are made under a lot of uncertainty and hence there is no easy way of determining their outcome. Moreover, we are left in a catch-22 situation when we realise that the decision we made, wasn’t the best and all we are left with is to rue the situation and keep contemplating about the ‘what if’ scenario. However, every dark cloud has a silver lining. And once we start looking beyond our disappointments, we might just be able to figure out how to make the most of such ‘bad decisions’ that we make. For me, ‘Engineering’ was one such bad decision and following is the story of how I created the silver lining amidst my dark clouds.

 

Getting Ahead of the Curve: 10 Things to do Before Joining a B-school

MBA, as a degree, comes with a lot of baggage. The exhaustive nature of the course notwithstanding, there is a lot of prep work which needs to be done before setting foot in a B-school. While a lot many of us land up with our under-graduate degrees by default (given the compulsive nature of our education system), the choice of a post graduate degree is mostly voluntary, done after taking into account a lot of factors.

 

Are You Really Happy with Where You Are in Your Life?

The question sounds very simple and innocent. Immediately, the response that comes to one’s mind is – ‘Of course, I am happy! Why shouldn’t I be.’ But (and I take the liberty of saying this), most of us would agree that this is more of a reassurance we give ourselves, the factual verity of which is subject to debate. It is a highly-loaded question and the deep introspection which the question necessitates is often overlooked by us in our quest for professional and personal glories. While asking this question to oneself at a daily level might not be realistic, but doing so at different check-points in our careers (and our lives) is imperative as it will help us analyse whether or not we are moving ahead in the right direction. The travesty – more often than not, we skip multiple check-points for different reasons, only to later realise that where we are isn’t where we wanted ourselves to be.

 

Opening the Pandora’s Box: Placement Process at B-schools

The choice of which B-school to choose for that coveted management degree might perhaps be the most critical decision that we take in the early part of our professional career. The amount of investment that goes in terms of cost (both actual and opportunity) and time is big enough to give sleepless nights to most while making that choice. Terms like ROI (Return on Investment), assets, collateral etc. no longer remain unknown jargons and we are forced to quantify them to our lives. It’s not for nothing that we have a plethora of forums that try to make it easier for the candidates by providing them any and every kind of detail that they might require to make that decision.

 

The Misconstrued Patriots: The Everyday Changing Definition of Patriotism

Patriotism, like religion, is a phenomenon that harbours on the highest order of conviction of the practitioner. However, like religion, it has started deriving its belief not from convictions but from conveniences. While they may sound similar, their connotation is as different as chalk and cheese. One derives its strength from unshakable belief while the other does it from opportunism. One goes beyond a person’s physical being while the other is very much confined to physical and mental conditioning. One hardly ever changes while the other can be as fickle as the weather.

 

Living In The Absolutes: The Modern Day Phenomenon of Doing Everything Extreme

‘Democracy should be absolute.’

‘Criminalisation of Article 377.’

‘Freedom of press is sacrosanct.’

‘Ban on the consumption of liquor.’

‘Criminal charges on the consumption of beef.’

 

The Underdog Paradigm – Why We Tend To Root For Them

What is it about the ‘underdogs’? Why is it that in the battle of David vs Goliath, it is always David that our heart beats for? What wrong did Goliath do? He is not to be blamed for the immense resources at his disposal, in the case of the legend, his gigantic proportion and humongous power. There was a time when even he started from scratch and through years of toil and grind, managed to be where he was eventually. Yes, that’s right, he must have been an underdog once as well.